NANOTECHNOLOGY

New Tool for Next-Generation Cancer Treatments using Nanodiamonds

A research team at Northwestern University has demonstrated a tool that can precisely deliver tiny doses of drug-carrying nanomaterials to individual cells.

The tool, called the Nanofountain Probe, functions in two different ways: in one mode, the probe acts like a fountain pen, wherein drug-coated nanodiamonds serve as the ink, allowing researchers to create devices by "writing" with it. The second mode functions as a single-cell syringe, permitting direct injection of biomolecules or chemicals into individual cells.

The research was led by Horacio Espinosa, professor of mechanical engineering, and Dean Ho, assistant professor of mechanical and biomedical engineering, both at the McCormick School of Engineering and Applied Science at Northwestern. Their results were recently published online in the scientific journal Small.

The probe could be used both as a research tool in the development of next-generation cancer treatments and as a nanomanufacturing tool to build the implantable drug delivery devices that will apply these treatments. The potential of nanomaterials to revolutionize drug delivery is emergent in early trials, which show their ability to moderate the release of highly toxic chemotherapy drugs and other therapeutics. This provides a platform for drug-delivery schemes with reduced side effects and improved targeting.

“This is an exciting development that complements our previous demonstrations of direct patterning of DNA, proteins and nanoparticles,” says Espinosa.

Using the Nanofountain Probe, the group injected tiny doses of nanodiamonds into both healthy and cancerous cells. This technique will help cancer researchers investigate the efficacy of new drug-nanomaterial systems as they become available.

The group also used the same Nanofountain Probes to pattern dot arrays of drug-coated nanodiamonds directly on glass substrates. The production of these dot arrays, with dots that can be made smaller than 100 nanometers in diameter, provides the proof of concept by which to manufacture devices that will deliver these nanomaterials within the body.

The work addresses two major challenges in the development and clinical application of nanomaterial-mediated drug-delivery schemes: dosage control and high spatial resolution.

In fundamental research and development, biologists are typically constrained to studying the effects of a drug on an entire cell population because it is difficult to deliver them to a single cell. To address this issue, the team used the Nanofountain Probe to target and inject single cells with a dose of nanodiamonds.

“This allows us to deliver a precise dose to one cell and observe its response relative to its neighbors,” Ho says. “This will allow us to investigate the ultimate efficacy of novel treatment strategies via a spectrum of internalization mechanisms.”

Beyond the broad research focused on developing these drug-delivery schemes, manufacturing devices to execute the delivery will require the ability to precisely place doses of drug-coated nanomaterials. Ho and colleagues previously developed a polymer patch that could be used to deliver chemotherapy drugs locally to sites where cancerous tumors have been removed. This patch is embedded with a layer of drug-coated nanodiamonds, which moderate the release of the drug. The patch is capable of controlled and sustained low levels of release over a period of months, reducing the need for chemotherapy following the removal of a tumor.

“An attractive enhancement will be to use the Nanofountain Probe to replace the continuous drug-nanodiamond films currently used in these devices with patterned arrays composed of multiple drugs,” Ho says. “This allows high-fidelity spatial tuning of dosing in intelligent devices for comprehensive treatment.”

“One of the most significant aspects of this work is the Nanofountain Probe’s ability to deliver nanomaterials coated with a broad range of drugs and other biological agents,” Espinosa says. “The injection technique is currently being explored for delivery of a wide variety of bio-agents, including DNA, viruses and other therapeutically relevant materials.”

Nanodiamonds have also proven effective in seeding the growth of diamond thin films. These diamond films have exciting applications in next-generation nanoelectronics. Here again, the ability to pattern nanodiamonds with sub-100-nanometer resolution provides inroads to realizing these devices on a mass scale. The resolution in nanodiamond patterning demonstrated by the Nanofountain Probe represents an improvement of three orders of magnitude over other reported direct-write schemes of nanodiamond patterning.

The work was supported by the National Science Foundation, the National Institutes of Health, the V Foundation for Cancer Research and the Wallace H. Coulter Foundation.

In addition to Espinosa and Ho, other authors of the paper, entitled “Nanofountain Probe-based High-resolution Patterning and Single-cell Injection of Functionalized Nanodiamonds,” are Owen Loh, Robert Lam, Mark Chen, Nicolaie Moldovan and Houjin Huang of Northwestern University.

Source: Northwestern University

Researchers use beams of light to grab and hold molecules

View VIDEO: DNA molecules suspended in a stream of water flowing through a nanoscale channel.

http://www.nsf.gov/news/news_videos.jsp?cntn_id=112942&media_id=63371&org=NSF 

Using a beam of light shunted through a tiny silicon channel, researchers have created a nanoscale trap that can stop free floating DNA molecules and nanoparticles in their tracks. By holding the nanoscale material steady while the fluid around it flows freely, the trap may allow researchers to boost the accuracy of biological sensors and create a range of new 'lab on a chip' diagnostic tools.

The Cornell University research team reports its findings in the Jan. 1, 2009, issue of the journal Nature.

"For this research to emerge in the marketplace in a device such as a 'lab on a chip', it is essential for engineers to be able to manipulate matter at the scale of molecules and atoms, particularly while the matter is contained within a fluid stream only slightly larger than the particles themselves," says William Schultz, the National Science Foundation (NSF) program officer who oversaw the researchers' grant. "NSF and other funding agencies have made nano-science and -technology a high priority. The Cornell researchers have made an important step in realizing the full potential of these devices."

Light has been used to manipulate cells and even nanoscale objects before, but the new technique allows researchers to manipulate the particles more precisely and over longer distances.

"At the nanoscale, we can think of light like a series of massless particles called photons," says Cornell engineer David Erickson, one of the co-authors of the study. "We've demonstrated a way to condense these photons down to a very small area and stream them along a special type of waveguide, a device that acts like a nanoscale optical fiber. When pieces of matter, like DNA or nanoparticles, float near these streaming photons, they are sucked in and pushed along with the flow. The effect is sort of like moving a truck by throwing baseballs at it. The trick is that we found a way to have a large number of highly efficient "collisions" between the photons and the nanoparticles, getting them to stay in our device and keep them moving along it."

Erickson and fellow Cornell engineer Michal Lipson, along with their graduate students Allen Yang, Sean Moore and Bradley Schmidt, and colleagues in Erickson's and Lipson's research groups, crafted a wave guide to shunt light into a narrow beam, laying a trap for the DNA and other small pieces of material.

Each of the tiny channels within the waveguide is only 60-120 nanometers (billionths of a meter) wide, thinner than the 1,500 nanometer wavelength of the infrared laser light channeling through them. The channels keep the light waves focused and enhance their ability to interact with the DNA particles, preventing them from flowing by.

The breakthrough is the use of the slot waveguide, which condenses a light wave's energy to scales as small as the target molecules, overcoming prior limitations caused by light diffraction. Because the waveguide is also a "nanochannel" it can both trap and transport objects using light.

For their experiments, the researchers used water solutions containing either DNA or tiny nanoparticles, washing the fluids over the waveguide microchannels. At a speed of 80 micrometers per second, the system traps less than a fourth of the target particles flowing by, but with smaller channel sizes, slower flows and higher energy lasers, the success rate increases.

"What we're hoping to do now is better understand some of the underlying physics to see what else might be possible with this approach," adds Erickson. "Ultimately we imagine being able to take all the ultrafast and highly efficient optical devices that have been developed for communications and other applications over the last 20 years and apply them to the manipulation of matter in different types of nanosystems. Hopefully in the future we can shuttle around individual strands of DNA the same way we now shuttle around light."

In future iterations of the system, the light will both capture the particles and transport them, so the DNA would arrive at the trap and then be directed to another location, such as a sensor or a staging ground for the assembly of a structure.

For more information, see the Cornell University press release at: http://www.news.cornell.edu/stories/Dec08/optofluidicTrap.ws.html.

-NSF-

Northwestern University team develops new method to reliably produce and sort out double-walled carbon nanotubes; discovery could lower the cost of this dynamic material.

VIEW VIDEO:  interview with Mark C. Hersam, professor of materials science and engineering at Northwestern University.

In recent years, the possible applications for double-walled carbon nanotubes have excited scientists and engineers, particularly those working on developing renewable energy technologies. These tiny tubes, just two carbon atoms thick, are thin enough to be transparent, yet can still conduct electricity. This combination makes them well-suited for advanced solar panels, sensors and a host of other applications.

Up until now, the problem with double-walled carbon nanotubes has been being able to produce a homogeneous supply of them. When double-walled carbon nanotubes are synthesized, the process also creates many of the single- and multi-walled variety. Given their small size, sorting the valuable double-walled tubes from the other types has posed a real challenge.

In a paper published today in the online edition of the journal Nature Nanotechnology, two researchers from Northwestern University outline a new process for efficiently gathering up these coveted double-walled carbon nanotubes. For more information on the team's work, go to http://www.northwestern.edu/newscenter/stories/2008/12/nanotube.html.

-NSF-

The National Science Foundation (NSF) is an independent federal agency that supp orts fundamental research and education across all fields of science and engineering, with an annual budget of $6.06 billion. NSF funds reach all 50 states through grants to over 1,900 universities and institutions. Each year, NSF receives about 45,000 competitive requests for funding, and makes over 11,500 new funding awards. NSF also awards over $400 million in professional and service contracts yearly.

Nanotechnology offers unique opportunities to advance the life sciences by facilitating the delivery, manipulation and observation of biological materials with unprecedented resolution. 

Unfortunately, most tools capable of patterning with such tiny resolution were developed for the silicon microelectronics industry and cannot be used for soft and relatively sensitive biomaterials such as DNA and proteins.

Now a team of researchers at Northwestern University has demonstrated the ability to rapidly write nanoscale protein arrays using a tool they call the nanofountain probe (NFP).

“The NFP works much like a fountain pen, only on a much smaller scale, and in this case, the ink is the protein solution,” said Horacio Espinosa, head of the research team and professor of mechanical engineering in the McCormick School of Engineering and Applied Science at Northwestern.

The results, published online this week in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS), include demonstrations of sub-100-nanometer protein dots and sub-200-nanometer line arrays written using the NFP at rates as high as 80 microns/second.

Each nanofountain probe chip has a set of ink reservoirs that hold the solution to be patterned. Like a fountain pen, the ink is transported to sharp writing probes through a series of microchannels and deposited on the substrate in liquid form.

“This is important for a number of reasons,” said Owen Loh, a graduate student at Northwestern who co-authored the paper with fellow student Andrea Ho. “By maintaining the sensitive proteins in a liquid buffer, their biological function is less likely to be affected. This also means we can write for extended periods over large areas without replenishing the ink.”

Earlier demonstrations of the NFP by the Northwestern team included directly writing organic and inorganic materials on a number of different substrates. These included suspensions of gold nanoparticles, thiols and DNA patterned on metallic- and silicon-based substrates.

In the case of protein deposition, the team found that by applying an electrical field between the nanofountain probe and substrate, they could control the transport of protein to the substrate. Without the use of electric fields, protein deposition was relatively slow and sporadic. However, with proper electrical bias, protein dot and line arrays could be deposited at extremely high rates.

“The use of electric fields allows an additional degree of control,” Espinosa said. “We were able to create dot and line arrays with a combination of speed and resolution not possible using other techniques.”

Positively charged proteins can be maintained inside the fountain probe by applying a negative potential to the NFP reservoirs with respect to a substrate. Reversing the applied potential then allows protein molecules to be deposited at a desired site.

To maximize the patterning resolution and efficiency, the team relied on computational models of the deposition process. “By modeling the ink flow within the probe tip, we were able to get a sense of what conditions would yield optimal patterns,” says Jee Rim, a postdoctoral researcher at Northwestern.

Espinosa collaborated closely with Neelesh Patankar, associate professor of mechanical engineering at Northwestern, and Punit Kohli, assistant professor of chemistry and biochemistry at Southern Illinois University, Carbondale.

“We are very excited by these results,” said Espinosa. “This technique is very broadly applicable, and we are pursuing it on a number of fronts.” These include single-cell biological studies and direct-write fabrication of large-scale arrays of nanoelectrical and nanoelectromechanical devices.

“The fact that we can batch fabricate large arrays of these fountain probes means we can directly write large numbers of features in parallel,” added Espinosa. “The demonstration of rapid protein deposition rates further supports our efforts in producing a large-scale nanomanufacturing tool.”

The paper in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences was authored by Loh, Ho, Rim, Patankar, Kohli and Espinosa.

The work was part of the Northwestern University Nanoscale Science and Engineering Center and was supported by the Nanoscale Science and Engineering Initiative of the National Science Foundation under NSF Award Number EEC-0647560 and NIRT Project No. CMS00304472.

Credit: Northwestern University Press Release

A family of biodegradable polymers called polyketals and their derivatives may improve treatment for such inflammatory illnesses as acute lung injury, acute liver failure and inflammatory bowel disease by delivering drugs, proteins and snips of ribonucleic acid to disease locations in the body.

Niren Murthy, an assistant professor in Georgia Tech’s Department of Biomedical Engineering, has developed biodegradable polymers that may improve the treatment of acute inflammatory illnesses. 

 “The polyketal microparticles we developed are simply a vehicle to get the drugs inside the body to the diseased area as quickly as possible,” said Niren Murthy, assistant professor in the Coulter Department of Biomedical Engineering at Georgia Tech and Emory University. “The major advantage to using these polyketals to deliver drugs is that they degrade into biocompatible compounds that don’t accumulate in a patient’s tissue or cause additional inflammation.”

Details about the polyketals and clinical applications were described during three presentations on August 18-20 at the 236th American Chemical Society National Meeting in Philadelphia. This research – launched in 2003 – is funded by the National Science Foundation and the National Institutes of Health.

In a presentation on August 19, graduate student Scott Wilson detailed a new polyketal derivative aimed at enhancing the treatment of inflammatory bowel disease – an illness that causes the large and small intestines to swell.

The new polymer has the advantage of stability in both acids and bases. It degrades only in the presence of reactive oxygen species, which are present in and around inflamed tissue. Cell culture experiments have demonstrated that the microparticles degraded more rapidly in cells that overproduced superoxide, a reactive oxygen species.

Polyketal microparticles – used as a vehicle to deliver therapeutics to an affected region of the body –degrade into biocompatible compounds that don’t accumulate in a patient’s tissue or cause additional inflammation. 

Georgia Tech Photo: Gary Meek Dowload 300 dpi image

The researchers are currently collaborating with Didier Merlin, a professor in the Division of Digestive Diseases at Emory University, to investigate loading these polyketals with therapeutics to treat inflammatory bowel disease.

“We think these microparticles are going to be fantastic for oral drug delivery because they can survive the stomach conditions before they release their contents in the intestines,” noted Murthy.

Murthy’s group is also examining the use of polyketals to treat acute liver failure – a condition in which the liver stops functioning because macrophages in the liver create reactive oxygen species. One treatment is the delivery of superoxide dismutase, an enzyme that detoxifies superoxide. Incorporating the enzyme inside a polyketal – poly(cyclohexane-1,4-diyl acetone dimethylene ketal) – allows the enzyme to be released very quickly in an acidic environment.

“Patients with acute liver failure need drugs as soon as possible or else they’ll die,” said Murthy. “We’ve tailored the polyketal’s hydrolysis rates to deliver the drug in one or two days.”

Nick Crisp, professor of microbiology and immunology at the University of Rochester Medical Center, and Robert Pierce, currently head of anatomic pathology at Schering-Plough Biopharma and formerly of the University of Rochester Medical Center, are collaborating on this project. Georgia Tech, Emory and the University of Rochester have filed three patent applications on the polyketal drug delivery system.

To treat other illnesses, it may be necessary to deliver proteins to a diseased organ. In a presentation on August 18, Georgia Tech researchers described such a method, which was developed by Murthy, Michael Davis, an assistant professor in the Coulter Department of Biomedical Engineering, and graduate student Jay Sy.

 “Delivering proteins inside microparticles has been limited because getting the protein into the microparticles required organic solvents that frequently destroyed the proteins,” explained Murthy. “To overcome this problem, we developed a method of simply immobilizing the protein on the surface of the microparticles.”

The researchers incorporated a nitrilotriacetic acid-lipid conjugate into the polyketal. In a one-step procedure, they mixed the microparticles with the proteins and centrifuged them. That immobilized the proteins on the surface of the polyketals. Laboratory experiments conducted under physiological conditions have shown that half of the bound proteins were released within 24 hours.

Also in collaboration with Davis, the researchers are testing the ability of the protein-bound polyketals to treat heart attacks.

In the next few years, Murthy and his team of graduate students and collaborators plan to continue developing new polyketals and conducting efficacy tests in cell cultures and animal studies.

“In the past few years, we have developed methods to tailor the polyketal’s properties, which have already allowed us to target many different medical conditions, but our end goal is to test these treatments in humans,” noted Murthy.

Source: Georgia Tech Press Release

--Paper discusses gold nanoparticle system that takes drug right to cancerous cells--

Researchers at Case Western Reserve University have developed a technique that has the potential to deliver cancer-fighting drugs to diseased areas within hours, as opposed to the two days it currently takes for existing delivery systems.

Using laboratory mice, drug delivery time from injection to the cancer cells was reduced from two days to mere hours. Using this as a model for potential human use, cancer patients may someday soon receive the benefits of cancer-fighting drugs within hours of injection. Findings are discussed in a paper, co-authored by Clemens Burda, associate professor of chemistry and director of the Center for Chemical Dynamics and Nanomaterials Research at Case Western Reserve University and graduate student Yu Cheng, appearing in the current edition of the Journal of the American Chemical Society .

The system uses gold nanoparticle vectors to deliver photodynamic therapy (PDT) drugs through the bloodstream to cancerous sites. "Gold nanoparticles are usually not used for the PDT drug vector," said Cheng. "However, gold is chemically inert and nontoxic."

Photodynamic therapy utilizes light-sensitive drugs that, when exposed to light of a certain wavelength, will energize and burn away cancer cells.

 Because exposure to light activates these drugs, PDT patients must keep out of bright lights for days while the drugs make their way through the bloodstream to the cancer site. At that time, they are activated by a light focused on the specific area of the body. "By shortening the waiting time from drug injection to activation, PDT patients are much less inconvenienced and tend to have a more normal lifestyle," said Burda.

Looks like a "Hairy Ball"

The drug delivery system uses a gold nanoparticle (Au NP) as its hub. Gold is non-toxic to the human body, and has a versatile surface chemistry, large surface-to-volume ratio and variable size and shape.

Each Au NP is coated with polyethylene glycol (PEG) ligands, giving it the appearance of a hairy ball, said Burda. These PEG molecules offer several advantages over other materials: they are soluble in fats and water, don't interact with proteins in the bloodstream and help protect the drug, keeping it safe and stable until delivery to the cancer site.

Between each PEG ligand, molecules of a photodynamic chemotherapy drug (Pc 4) are attached to the Au NP. The Pc 4 drug (a phthalocyanine compound) was developed at Case Western Reserve by Malcolm Kenney, professor of chemistry.

When the nanoparticle reaches the cancerous tissue the drug molecules are released and uploaded to the diseased area. Focused red light is used to energize the drug in the patient once it has been delivered to the tumor.

Burda says that a potential future research project would look at providing a time-release administration of the drug rather than a more all-at-once release. In the long term, Burda hopes to make the Au NP delivery system applicable to a broad range of diseases.

The Au NP has a diameter of 5 nm. The addition of PEG ligands expands the total diameter to 32 nm, larger than some other nanoparticles currently in use, but still small enough to pass unencumbered through the bloodstream.

A single 1/4-mL injection holds approximately 100 million Au NPs, each carrying approximately 100 drug molecules.

Tail to Tumor in Two Minutes

In the laboratory of Baowei Fei, assistant professor of radiology and biomedical engineering at Case Western Reserve, these Au NPs have been used to treat mice with cancerous tumors. Once the Au NPs have been injected into the tail, the Pc 4 is uploading into the diseased area within minutes. The accelerated speed of drug administration in mice is due in part to the much more efficient dispersion of the NP delivered drug.

When tested on human cells called HeLa — a line of laboratory-grown human cells used in testing — most of the drug is uploaded within one hour.

Testing on human beings may not begin for some time. Commercialization will take even longer due to Food and Drug Administration (FDA) testing and approval. However, all of the components — Au Nps, PEG ligands and Pc 4 — have already received FDA approval.

What's Next

Burda says that as Au NP testing continues, short-term goals include minimizing the amount of material and drug load needed for effective interaction with cancer cells; optimizing potential targeting systems on the PEG ligands for faster, even more specific placement in diseased areas; and increasing the overall effectiveness of nanoparticle enhanced therapy.

"The system is very modular," says Burda. "We can change the size and shape of the Au core NPs and we can change the functionality of the PEG ligands. This should lead to optimization of the drug targeting and therapy. If our research is successful, other researchers might adapt this drug delivery system to other diseases and applications."

Funding support came from the National Science Foundation, National Institute of Health/National Cancer Institute and the Biomedical Research Technology Transfer Center under the leadership of Pamela Davis, dean of the Case Western Reserve School of Medicine and vice president for medical affairs.

Source: Case Western University Press Release

In the first study of its kind, bioengineers and bioscientists at Rice University and Radboud University in Nijmegen, Netherlands, have shown they can grow denser bone tissue by sprinkling stick-like nanoparticles throughout the porous material used to pattern the bone.

The research is available online and slated to appear in the journal Bone. It's the latest breakthrough from the burgeoning field of tissue engineering. The new discipline combines the latest research in materials science and biomedical engineering to produce tissues that can be transplanted without risk of rejection.

To grow new bone, tissue engineers typically place bone cells on porous, biodegradable materials called scaffolds, which act as patterns. With the right chemical and physical cues, the cells can be coaxed into producing new bone. As the scaffold degrades, it is replaced by new bone.

"Ideally, a scaffold should be highly porous, nontoxic and biodegradable, yet strong enough to bear the structural load of the bone that will eventually replace it," said lead researcher Antonios Mikos, Rice's J.W. Cox Professor in Bioengineering, professor of chemical and biomolecular engineering and the director of Rice's Center for Excellence in Tissue Engineering. "Previous research has shown that carbon nanotubes give added strength to polymer scaffolds, but this is the first study to examine the performance of these materials in an animal model."

In the experiments, the researchers implanted two kinds of scaffolds into rabbits. One type was made of a biodegradable plastic called poly(propylene fumarate), or PPF, which has performed well in previous experiments. The second was made of 99.5 percent PPF and 0.5 percent single-walled carbon nanotubes. Nanotubes are about 80,000th the width of a hair. While they are normally about a thousand times longer than they are wide, the researchers used shorter segments that have fared well in prior cytocompatibility studies.

Half the samples were examined four weeks after implantation and half after 12 weeks. While there was no notable difference in performance at four weeks, the nanotube composites exhibited up to threefold greater bone ingrowth after 12 weeks than the PPF. Furthermore, the researchers found the 12-week composite scaffolds contained about two-thirds as much bone tissue as the nearby native bone tissue, while the PPF contained only about one-fifth as much.

Mikos said the nanocomposites performed better than anticipated. In fact, the results indicate that they may go beyond passive guides and take an active role in promoting bone growth.

"We don't yet know the exact mechanism of this enhanced bone formation, but we have intensive studies under way to find out," Mikos said. "It could be related to changes in surface chemistry, strength or other factors."

Co-authors on the paper include Rice former Ph.D. graduate student Xinfeng Shi, now a research scientist at Bausch & Lomb, and former postdoctoral fellow Balaji Sitharaman, now an assistant professor of biomedical engineering at State University of New York at Stony Brook; Lon Wilson, professor of chemistry at Rice; and John Jansen, Frank Walboomers, Hongbing Liao and Vincent Cuijpers, all of Radboud University Nijmegen Medical Center.

The research was funded by the National Institutes of Health, the National Science Foundation, the Robert A. Welch Foundation, and Rice's J. Evans-Attwell Postdoctoral Fellows Program.

A bacteria cell living in a no-oxygen environment "breathes" using mineral nanoparticles

(Image Caption)

The ubiquity of tiny particles of minerals--mineral nanoparticles--in oceans and rivers, atmosphere and soils, and in living cells are providing scientists with new ways of understanding Earth's workings. Our planet's physical, chemical, and biological processes are influenced or driven by the properties of these minerals.

So states a team of researchers from seven universities in a paper published in the journal Science: "Nanominerals, Mineral Nanoparticles, and Earth Systems."

The way in which these infinitesimally small minerals influence Earth's systems is more complex than previously thought, the scientists say. Their work is funded by the National Science Foundation (NSF).

"This is an excellent summary of the relevance of natural nanoparticles in the Earth system," said Enriqueta Barrera, program director in NSF's Division of Earth Sciences. "It shows that there is much to be learned about the role of nanominerals, and points to the need for future research."

Minerals have an enormous range of physical and chemical properties due to a wide range of composition and structure, including particle size. Each mineral has a set of specific physical and chemical properties. Nanominerals, however, have one critical difference: a range of physical and chemical properties, depending on their size and shape.

"This difference changes our view of the diversity and complexity of minerals, and how they influence Earth systems," said Michael Hochella of the Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University in Blacksburg, Va.

The role of nanominerals is far-reaching, said Hochella. Nanominerals are widely distributed throughout the atmosphere, oceans, surface and underground waters, and soils, and in most living organisms, even within proteins.

Nanoparticles play an important role in the lives of ocean-dwelling phytoplankton, for example, which remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. Phytoplankton growth is limited by iron availability. Iron in the ocean is composed of nanocolloids, nanominerals, and mineral nanoparticles, supplied by rivers, glaciers and deposition from the atmosphere. Nanoscale reactions resulting in the formation of phytoplankton biominerals, such as calcium carbonate, are important influences on oceanic and global carbon cycling.

On land, nanometer-scale hematite catalyzes the oxidation of manganese, resulting in the rapid formation of minerals that absorb heavy metals in water and soils. The rate of oxidation is increased when nanoparticles are present.

Conversely, harmful heavy metals may disperse widely, courtesy of nanominerals. In research at the Clark Fork River Superfund Complex in Montana, Hochella discovered a nanomineral involved in the movement of lead, arsenic, copper, and zinc through hundred of miles of Clark River drainage basin.

Nanominerals can also move radioactive substances. Research at one of the most contaminated nuclear sites in the world, a nuclear waste reprocessing plant in Mayak, Russian, has shown that plutonium travels in local groundwater, carried by mineral nanoparticles.

In the atmosphere, mineral nanoparticles impact heating and cooling. Such particles act as water droplet growth centers, which lead to cloud formation. The size and density of droplets influences solar radiation and cloud longevity, which in turn influence average global temperatures.

"The biogeochemical and ecological impact of natural and synthetic nanomaterials is one of the fastest growing areas of research, with not only vital scientific, but also large environmental, economic, and political consequences," the authors conclude.

In addition to Hochella, authors of the paper are Steven Lower of Ohio State University, and Patricia Maurice of the University of Notre Dame; along with R. Lee Penn of the University of Minnesota; Nita Sahai of the University of Wisconsin-Madison; Donald Sparks of the University of Delaware; and Benjamin Twining of the University of South Carolina.

Source: -NSF-

The National Science Foundation (NSF) is an independent federal agency that supports fundamental research and education across all fields of science and engineering, with an annual budget of $5.92 billion. NSF funds reach all 50 states through grants to over 1,700 universities and institutions. Each year, NSF receives about 42,000 competitive requests for funding, and makes over 10,000 new funding awards. The NSF also awards over $400 million in professional and service contracts yearly.

NSF Home Page: http://www.nsf.gov

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Nottingham, UK– Novozymes announced a new collaboration agreement with Upperton Limited, a UK based Biotech Company specializing in novel nanoparticle-based drug delivery systems. The agreement extends previous collaborations between the two companies and will focus on the commercial exploitation of the jointly-owned rP-nano™ technology: a highly targeted drug delivery system which utilizes the natural binding properties of recombinant protein nanoparticles to enhance drug and gene bioavailability.

rP-nano™ technology can produce nanoparticles from all peptides and proteins, including monoclonal antibodies and enzymes, without denaturation. The suitability of this technology to pharmaceutical applications will be demonstrated to potential licensees through nanoparticles generated from recombinant human albumin. Novozymes is the sole manufacturer of the worlds' only animal-free commercially available recombinant human albumin approved for use by the EMEA and FDA in the manufacture of human therapeutics, Recombumin®. For proof of principle, Upperton has loaded Novozymes' recombinant human albumin with monoclonal antibodies, radioactive metal ions, chemotherapeutic agents and paramagnetic metal ions.

Under the terms of the agreement Upperton will use rP-nano™ technology to generate nanoparticles from recombinant proteins expressed in Novozymes' proprietary, yeast-based expression system. Uniquely, rP-nano™ technology can generate precisely-sized nanoparticles within the range of 10nm to 120nm and can be optimized for Enhanced Permeability and Retention effect. The nanoparticles produced through this process retain the natural binding properties of the recombinant proteins from which they are made, and bind to specific cell types to enable more targeted drug delivery and improved bioavailability.

Dr Richard Johnson, MD Upperton Limited, said: "I am extremely pleased to be continuing our collaboration with Novozymes. Use of their animal-free, GMP recombinant proteins will be extremely important as we look to commercialise our unique technology. In addition, Novozymes' regulatory knowledge and expertise in yeast-based protein expression, will allow us to faster develop rP-nano™ technology and create a very attractive proposition for future marketing or licensing partners"

Dr Dave Mead, Novozymes' UK based Business Development Director commented: "Our original research demonstrated the huge potential of rP-nano™ technology and we are very pleased to continue collaborating with Upperton to develop this further. This is further exemplification of Novozymes' high yielding expression systems being used for the production of pharmaceutical grade recombinant proteins"

About Upperton Ltd.

Upperton Limited, founded in 1999, is a privately owned biotech company based in Nottingham, UK and specialising in spray drying and particle technologies. They have recently co-patented rP-nano™ technology with Novozymes as a next generation technology for producing nano-sized particles from proteins, with broad application. The rP-nano™ technology offers unique competitive advantages over current methods of producing nanoparticles. Upperton welcomes academic and industrial partners to explore and commercialise this technology.

Further information about Upperton can be found at www.upperton.com

About Novozymes

Novozymes is the world leader in bioinnovation. Together with customers across a broad array of industries, we create tomorrow's industrial biosolutions, improving our customers' business and the use of our planet's resources. With over 700 products used in 130 countries, Novozymes' bioinnovations improve industrial performance and safeguard the world's resources by offering superior and sustainable solutions for tomorrow's ever-changing marketplace.

Novozymes' natural solutions enhance and promote everything from removing trans-fats in food, to advancing biofuels to power the world tomorrow. Our never-ending exploration of nature's potential is evidenced by over 4,500 patents, showing what is possible when nature and technology join forces.

Our 4,500+ employees working in research, production and sales around the world are committed to shaping business today and our world tomorrow.

Read more at www.biopharmaceuticals.novozymes.com .

Source: Upperton Press Release

July 25, 2007. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA)'s Nanotechnology Task Force today released a report that recommends the agency consider developing guidance and taking other steps to address the benefits and risks of drugs and medical devices using nanotechnology.

"Nanotechnology holds enormous potential for use in a vast array of products," said Commissioner of Food and Drugs Andrew von Eschenbach, M.D., who endorsed the Task Force Report and its recommendations on July 23, 2007. "Recognizing the emerging nature of this technology and its potential for rapid development, this report fosters the continued development of innovative, safe and effective FDA-regulated products that use nanotechnology materials."

Scientists and researchers increasingly are working in the nanoscale, creating and using materials and devices at the level of molecules and atoms—1/100,000th the width of a human hair.

The FDA's Task Force Report on Nanotechnology addresses regulatory and scientific issues and recommends FDA consider development of nanotechnology-associated guidance for manufacturers and researchers. The Task Force was initiated by Commissioner von Eschenbach in 2006.

The Task Force reports that nanoscale materials potentially could be used in most product types regulated by FDA and that those materials present challenges similar to those posed by products using other emerging technologies. The challenges, however, may be complicated by the fact that properties relevant to product safety and effectiveness may change as size varies within the nanoscale.

The report also says that the emerging and uncertain nature of nanotechnology and the potentially rapid development of applications for FDA-regulated products highlight the need for ensuring transparent, consistent, and predictable regulatory pathways.

Anticipating the potential for rapid development in the field, the report recommends consideration of agency guidance that would clarify, for example, what information to give FDA about products, and also when the use of nanoscale materials may change the regulatory status of particular products. As with other FDA guidance, draft guidance documents would be made available for public comment prior to being finalized.

In addition, the report says the FDA should work to assess data needs to better regulate nanotechnology products, including biological effects and interactions of nanoscale materials. The agency also should develop in-house expertise and ensure consideration of relevant new information on nanotechnology as it becomes available, according to the report. FDA should evaluate the adequacy of current testing approaches to assess safety, effectiveness and quality of nanoscale materials.

FDA and 22 other federal agencies are part of the National Nanotechnology Initiative, a federal research and development program established to coordinate the multi-agency efforts in nanoscale science, engineering, and technology.

For more information:

FDA Nanotechnology Report

Report PDF: www.fda.gov/nanotechnology/taskforce/report2007.pdf

Report HTML: www.fda.gov/nanotechnology/taskforce/report2007.html

Consumer Article: www.fda.gov/consumer/updates/nanotech072507.html

National Nanotechnology Initiative: http://www.nano.gov/ 

Fact sheet: http://www.fda.gov/nanotechnology/taskforce/factsheet2007.html  

i = information

Meme = a unit of cultural information that is transferable from one mind to another. It is self-propagating as a unit of cultural evolution and diffusion. Often, memes propagate as more or less integrated, cooperative sets or groups, analogous, in many ways, to the behavior of genes. Memes that replicate most effectively spread best. 

This summer a select group of leaders and innovators will come together to share the ideas they consider the digital memes driving the future at FORTUNE iMeme: The Thinkers of Tech. This invitation-only event is for business executives who recognize that their company's future depends on understanding the trends at the core of technology. Topics—ranging from the purely technological to the cultural—will include the platforms of the future, the challenges tech and telecom face as the connected world expands, the future of digital media, the Internet's next act, the impact of green technology, how to market to the entire planet, and upcoming digital disruptors.

FORTUNE's tech conference is sponsored by the magazine's technology, media, and Internet editorial talent and chaired by technology editor David Kirkpatrick. The conference will offer an in-depth perspective on the current digital landscape, a glimpse into the future, and a vision of how your company can capitalize on technology's transformative effects. iMeme promises an unparalleled combination of energy, imagination, and digital-age combustion.

Event:              FORTUNE iMEME: The Thinkers of Tech Conference

Dates:               Thursday, July 12 & Friday, July 13

Location:          The Ritz-Carlton, San Francisco

                           600 Stockton Street at California Street

                           San Francisco, CA 94108                                      

*Program is subject to change.  For an updated agenda please check:

http://www.timeinc.net/fortune/conferences/imeme/imeme_home.html

 Speakers below are confirmed as of July 2, 2007.

 Time:   Thursday, July 12

 7:00 am—9:00 am – PRESS REGISTRATION

9:00 am—9:05 am – WELCOME – Andy Serwer, Managing Editor, FORTUNE; David Kirkpatrick, Technology Editor, FORTUNE

9:05 am—9:50 am – iMEME: ECOSYSTEMS – PLATFORMS FOR THE NEXT NET - Marc Benioff, CEO, salesforce.com; Marissa Mayer, Vice President, Search Products and User Experience, Google; Philip Rosedale, CEO, Linden Lab; Mark Zuckerberg, CEO, Facebook; Moderator: David Kirkpatrick, FORTUNE

9:50 am—10:00 am – “MY MEME”: A SHORT TALK ON WHAT MATTERS - Introduced by James Ledbetter, CNNMoney.com; Catherine Cook, Co-founder, myYearbook.com

10:00 am—10:50 am – iMEME: COMMUNICATE – WHO MOVES THE BITS? - Lou D’Ambrosio, CEO, Avaya; Lisa Hook, CEO, SunRocket; Paul Jacobs, CEO, QUALCOMM; Solomon Trujillo, CEO, Telstra; Moderator: Stephanie Mehta, FORTUNE

10:50 am—11:00 am – “MY MEME” - Kevin Lynch, Chief Software Architect, Adobe Systems; Vineet Nayar, President, HCL Technologies

11:00 am—11:30 am – BREAK

ONC    11:30-12:30 - CONCURRENT BREAKOUT SESSIONS: I. Green Car of the Future - Martin Eberhard, CEO, Tesla Motors; Steve Fambro, CEO, Aptera Motors; Amory Lovins, Co-founder, Chairman, and Chief Scientist, Rocky Mountain Institute; Bill Reinert, National Manager, Advanced Technologies Group, Toyota; Moderator: Brian Dumaine, FSB: Fortune Small Business; II. Why Online Identity and Trust are Critical to Economic Growth – Kim Cameron, Architect of Identity and Access, Microsoft; Louise Guay, President, My Virtual Model; Chris Kelly, Chief Privacy Officer, Facebook; Harriet Pearson, VP, Regulatory Policy, and Chief Privacy Officer, IBM; Paul Trevthick, CEO and Co-founder, Parity Communications; Moderator: John Clippinger, Senior Fellow, Berkman Center for Internet & Society, Harvard Law School; III. Crowdsourcing: How Communities Change Media, Marketing, and Making Money - Richard Barton, CEO, Zillow.com; Jim Buckmaster, CEO, craigslist; Max Levchin, CEO, Slide; Jeremy Stoppelman, CEO, Yelp; Moderator: Jeffrey O’Brien, FORTUNE

12:30 pm—2:00 pm – LUNCH BREAK

2:00 pm—2:05 pm – “MY MEME” - Geordie Rose, Founder and CTO, D-Wave Systems

2:05 pm—2:20 pm – THE 21^ST CENTURY CEO: NEW TECHNOLOGIES, SHIFTING CULTURE - Jonathan Schwartz, CEO, Sun Microsystems; Interviewer: David Kirkpatrick, FORTUNE

2:20 pm – 3:05 pm – SUPER NATURAL SELECTION: WHAT’S NEXT FOR THE GIANTS OF ONLINE MEDIA? - Jim Lanzone, CEO, Ask.com; Yusuf Mehdi, Senior VP and Chief Advertising Strategist, Microsoft; Sheryl Sandberg, VP, Global Online Sales and Operations, Google; Jeff Weiner, Executive Vice President, Yahoo!; Moderator: Adam Lashinsky, FORTUNE

3:05 pm—3:15 pm – “MY MEME” - John Chambers, CEO, Cisco Systems; Introduced by David Kirkpatrick, FORTUNE

3:15 pm—4:00 pm – iMEME: THRIVE – TAPPING TECH’S GLOBAL OPPORTUNITY - John Chambers, CEO, Cisco Systems; John Gage, Chief Researcher, Sun Microsystems; Bernard Liautaud, Founder, Chairman, and Chief Strategy Officer, Business Objects SA; Padmasree Warrior, CTO, Motorola; Moderator: Rik Kirkland, FORTUNE

4:00 pm—4:05 pm – “MY MEME” - Gary Flake, Technical Fellow, Microsoft

4:05 pm—4:30 pm – BREAK

4:30 pm—5:30 pm – CONCURRENT BREAKOUT SESSIONS: I. HyperEvolution: Merging Man and Machine—The Intersection of IT and Biology - Robin Abrams, Chairman, Emotiv Systems; John Donoghue, Director, Brain Science Program, Brown University; Tomaso Poggio, Investigator, McGovern Institute for Brain Research, MIT; Craig Venter, President, J. Craig Venter Institute; Moderator: Brian O’Keefe, FORTUNE; II. The Next Four Billion - Allen Hammond, Vice President, Special Projects and Innovation, Markets and Enterprise Program, World Resources Institute; Karishma Kiri, Director, Market Expansion Group, Microsoft; Dan Shine, Director, 50X15 Initiative, AMD; Lee Thorn, Chair, Jhai Foundation; Moderator: Katie Benner, FORTUNE; III. The Future of Enterprise Software – Mark Carges, Executive Vice President, Business Interaction Division, BEA Systems; Mark Lewis, Executive Vice President and Chief Development Officer, EMC; Bernard Liautaud, Founder, Chairman, and Chief Strategy Officer, Business Objects SA; Doug Merrit, Executive Vice President and General Manager, SAP; Zach Nelson, CEO, NetSuite; Moderator: Endre Holen, Director and Leader, North American Technology Sector, McKinsey

5:30 pm—6:00 pm – BREAK

6:00 pm—7:00 pm – COCKTAIL RECEPTION

7:00 pm—7:45 pm – PANEL DISCUSSION: THE NEXT MEMES - Richard Dawkins, Professor, New College, Oxford University; Bill Joy, Partner, Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers; Craig Venter, President, J. Craig Venter Institute; Moderator: Andy Serwer, FORTUNE

Time:   Friday, July 13

7:00 am – PRESS REGISTRATION OPENS

7:30 am—8:20 am – DAY ONE RETROSPECTIVE – Hosted by BT; Leader: David Kirkpatrick,    FORTUNE; Special Guests: Michael Boustridge, President, BT Americas; Colin Spence, COO,        BT Americas; Paul Stitch, President and CEO, BT Counterpane; Julie Woods-Moss, Vice President, Marketing, BT Global Services

8:30 am—9:30 am – I. Lessons of the Digital Media Revolution; Lauren Berkowitz, Senior Vice President, Digital, EMI Music North America; Robert Glaser, CEO, RealNetworks; Jerry Harrison, Talking Head and Chairman, iLike; Terry McBride, CEO, Nettwerk Music Group; Shane Robison, Chief Strategy and Technology Officer, Hewlett-Packard; Moderator: Devin Leonard, FORTUNE; II. Nothing Ventured, Nothing Gained in the Digital Vortex: VC’s Talk About the Facts of Life in the New Tech Economy - Jim Breyer, General Partner, Accel Partners; Michael Moritz, General Partner, Sequoia Capital; Jerry Murdock, Managing Director, Insight Venture Partners; Fred Wilson, Founding Partner, Union Square Ventures; Moderator: Adam Lashinsky, FORTUNE

9:30 am—9:45 am – BREAK

9:45 am—9:50 am – “MY MEME” - Esther Dyson, EDventure Holdings/Release 0.9

9:50 am—10:35 am – iMEME: OPEN - NEW WORLD ORDER - Mitchell Baker, CEO, Mozilla; Mitchell Kapor, Founder, Kapor Enterprises; Jimmy Wales, Chairman, Wikimedia Foundation; Moderator: John Markoff, The New York Times

10:35 am—10:40 am – “MY MEME” - Eva Chen, CEO, Trend Micro

10:40 am—11:00 am –BREAK

11:00 am—11:20 am – THE NEXT PHASE: A VIEW FROM THE 22^nd CENTURY - Vinton Cerf, Chief Internet Evangelist, Google; Interviewer: David Kirkpatrick, FORTUNE

11:20 am—11:25 am – “MY MEME” - Stuart Wells, SVP & President, Global Communications Solutions, Avaya

11:25 am—12:10 pm – iMEME: NET MUTATIONS - THE FUTURE OF MEDIA - Samir Arora, CEO, Glam Media; Beth Comstock, President, Integrated Media, NBC Universal; Michael Jackson, President of Programming, IAC; Bruno Zheng Wu, Chairman, Sun Media Investment Holdings Group of Companies;  Moderator: Oliver Ryan, FORTUNE

12:10 pm—12:20 pm – “MY MEME” – Hal Raveché, President, Stevens Institute of Technology; Michael Boustridge, President, BT Americas

12:20 pm—12:45 pm – HOW HP RIGHTED THE SHIP: AN INTERVIEW WITH MARK HURD - Mark Hurd, Chairman & CEO, Hewlett-Packard; Interviewer: Adam Lashinsky, FORTUNE

12:45 pm – CLOSING REMARKS - Andy Serwer, FORTUNE; David Kirkpatrick, FORTUNE

Editorially sponsored by FORTUNE’s technology, media, and Internet editorial talent and chaired by technology editor David Kirkpatrick, iMEME’s major corporate sponsors include: Avaya, BT, Herman Miller, and The NASDAQ Stock Market, Inc.; Knowledge Partner: McKinsey & Company; and Supporters: Yoomba and spigit, Inc.  

For additional information, please visit:

http://www.timeinc.net/fortune/conferences/imeme/imeme_home.html

April 2007. US researchers have simulated half a virtual mouse brain on a supercomputer. The scientists ran a "cortical simulator" that was as big and as complex as half of a mouse brain on the BlueGene L supercomputer. In other smaller simulations the researchers say they have seen characteristics of thought patterns observed in real mouse brains. Now the team is tuning the simulation to make it run faster and to make it more like a real mouse brain.

Brain tissue presents a huge problem for simulation because of its complexity and the sheer number of potential interactions between the elements involved.

The three researchers, James Frye, Rajagopal Ananthanarayanan, and Dharmendra S Modha, laid out how they went about it in a very short research note entitled "Towards Real-Time, Mouse-Scale Cortical Simulations".

Half a real mouse brain is thought to have about eight million neurons each one of which can have up to 8,000 synapses, or connections, with other nerve fibers.

Modeling such a system, the trio wrote, puts "tremendous constraints on computation, communication and memory capacity of any computing platform".

The team, from the IBM Almaden Research Lab and the University of Nevada, ran the simulation on a BlueGene L supercomputer that had 4,096 processors, each one of which used 256MB of memory.

Using this machine the researchers created half a virtual mouse brain that had 8,000 neurons that had up to 6,300 synapses.

The vast complexity of the simulation meant that it was only run for ten seconds at a speed ten times slower than real life - the equivalent of one second in a real mouse brain.

On other smaller simulations the researchers said they had seen "biologically consistent dynamical properties" emerge as nerve impulses flowed through the virtual cortex.

In these other tests the team saw the groups of neurons form spontaneously into groups. They also saw nerves in the simulated synapses firing in a ways similar to the staggered, coordinated patterns seen in nature.

The researchers say that although the simulation shared some similarities with a mouse's mental make-up in terms of nerves and connections it lacked the structures seen in real mice brains.

Imposing such structures and getting the simulation to do useful work might be a much more difficult task than simply setting up the plumbing.

For future tests the team aims to speed up the simulation, make it more neurobiologically faithful, add structures seen in real mouse brains and make the responses of neurons and synapses more detailed.

Presently in pilot production in its Palo Alto, California facility, Nanosolar announced that it has started ordering volume production equipment for what is going to be the world's largest solar cell manufacturing factory. The company also announced today that its first cell fab will be located in the San Francisco Bay area and that its first panel fab -- for a broad array of novel product form factors using advanced processes -- is expected to be located in Berlin, Germany.

Seed-financed by the founders of Google, the company's team started pursuing its mission of making solar electricity vastly more affordable in 2002. After four years of intense commercial research and development, including two years of manufacturing process development and engineering, the company has now delivered on its ambition to produce a fundamentally less expensive, mass-manufacturable solar cell.

"Thin-film printing overcomes the complexity, high cost, and yield and scalability limitations associated with vacuum-based processes. Nanosolar’s technology enables low-cost, high-yield production previously unattainable," said Chris Eberspacher, Nanosolar's head of technology, noting further: "This allows us to produce cells very inexpensively and assemble them into panels that are comparable in efficiency to that of high-volume silicon based PV panels."

Added Werner Dumanski, Nanosolar's head of manufacturing and a storage-disk industry manufacturing veteran: "Given the square meter economics of solar, high-throughput high-yield processes have to be used to succeed in this industry. With Nanosolar's printing process, the fully-loaded cell cost -- including materials, consumables, energy, labor, facility, and capital -- is less than the depreciation expense alone that vacuum thin-film companies have to pay for the equipment that produces their cells."

Regarding the scale of the factory, Dumanski points out: "A factory of this capacity would cost more than one billion dollars to build if one used conventional solar technology. Given the distinctly superior capital efficiency of our unique process technology, we can achieve this scale with a lot less capital and as a startup company."

Nanosolar is a global leader in solar power innovation. Nanosolar's solar electricity panels deliver unparalleled cost efficiency, enabling customers to use green power without paying more. With its proprietary nanoparticle ink and fast roll-printing technology, Nanosolar owns the processes and designs to produce the world's most cost-efficient solar cells and make them available in many versatile product forms. The company's headquarters are in Palo Alto, California, with European operations based in Berlin, Germany. More information on Nanosolar is available on the Internet at www.nanosolar.com.

Led by Professor David Russell, researchers at the University of East Anglia are studying ways to use the nanoparticles as a detector of dangerous biological substances. The research makes use of gold nanoparticles that are only 16 nanometers in diameter - roughly 1/5000th the width of a human hair.

Earlier work by Professor Russell's team has refined manufacturing methods so relatively large amounts of the particles can be made quickly. Once made, the particles are coated with sugars tailored to detect different biological substances. When mixed with a weak solution of the sugar-coated nanoparticles, the target substance, be it a poison such as ricin or a bug like E.coli, binds to the sugar. This changes the properties of the solution and makes it change color. Pure solutions of the gold nanoparticles are a strong red color but instantly change to blue when the target substance is present.

Earlier work had been done with solutions of particles tailored for just one toxin as well as mixtures that combined nanoparticles tailored to spot different substances. The scientist said color changes were less dramatic with mixtures of nanoparticles but were still significant enough to easily spot. The extent of the color change can also reveal how much of particular toxins were present.

Using this method quantitative information about how much of a toxin is present can be obtained. This could be useful if the detection system is being used to check for impurities in water as it would reveal if they are present in small enough amounts to be safe or have passed a threshold level.

Future research will focus on building the detection system into a portable device that can be taken out to places where poisonous substances are thought to be present. Such a gadget would give basic information about which toxins were present and in what quantities. Professor Russell speculated that the portable detector could be ready in five years time. The research team is also looking into ways of using the detection system to help scene of crime officers analyze biological fluids such as sweat that criminals leave behind.

At the nanoscale, materials can be "tuned" to display some unusual properties that could be exploited to build faster, lighter, stronger, and more efficient devices and systems. The science involves the manipulation of atoms and molecules to give devices and materials novel properties. Tiny carbon nanotubes can be used to make strong composite materials.

SOME CURRENT NANO USES

• Disk drives with nanometre layers to increase data storage
• Lipid (fat) globules for anti-cancer drug delivery
• Stain repellent/waterproof textiles
• Anti-fungal sprays and fabrics
• Novel coatings, paints and pigments

SOME POTENTIAL USES OF NANOTECHNOLOGIES

• Organic Light Emitting Diodes (OLEDs) for displays
• Photovoltaic film that converts light into electricity
• Scratch-proof coated windows that clean themselves with UV
• Fabrics coated to resist stains and control temperature
• Intelligent clothing measures pulse and respiration
• Bucky-tubeframe is light but very strong
• Hip-joint made from biocompatible material
• Nano-particle paint to prevent corrosion
• Thermo-chromic glass to regulate light
• Magnetic layers for compact data memory
• Carbon nanotube fuel cells to power electronics and vehicles
• Nano-engineered cochlear implant

But the science has been dogged by a lot of hype and some predictions that experts in the field say are just pure fantasy. The most infamous of these is the "gray goo" scenario. This envisages swarms of self-replicating robots, smaller than viruses, multiplying uncontrollably and devouring Earth, turning it into a gray mush.

The idea has been featured by popular writers, and it received much publicity when Prince Charles entered the nanotech debate recently.

Eric Drexler, who many consider to be a "father of nanotechnology", recently downplayed the scenario, saying nanomachines that self-replicate are unlikely ever to enter widespread use. The risks and benefits in pursuing the tiny science of nanotechnology will be assessed in a report due soon.

The Royal Society and Royal Academy of Engineering have reviewed the current UK status of this developing research field and will propose new regulations. Concerns over nanotech's potential to harm human health and the environment were voiced recently by Prince Charles. It is thought the report will call for tighter controls on the production of some super-fine particles.

These are already being incorporated into a number cosmetics and composite materials to improve their performance. There is a worry, however, that the possible toxicity of these nanoparticles has not been fully explored. Commissioned in June 2003, the independent study has sought to identify the potential environmental, health and safety, as well as ethical and social impacts of nanotechnology.

Advocates say it could transform computing, electronics, medical research, and the energy industries in many ways. The most significant advances people will see is in the medical diagnostic area. But there have been calls for more regulation, particularly over the industrial development of the science by large corporations.